Schools And Businesses Coping Without Water

SCRANTON — Many businesses such as the Wizard Car Wash on Moosic Street are closed.

No water means no work and even no school for students in the Scranton School District.

It’s creating challenges for who knows how long.

South Scranton Intermediate is one of six buildings in the Scranton School District that don’t have water running through the pipes but the maintenance crews are working overtime.

“We still have to maintain our buildings, make sure we don’t have breaks or any kind of leaks – not only now with the water off – but when the water comes back on,” said director of facilities and grounds Jeff Brazil.

At South Scranton Intermediate, a pipe on an exterior wall was leaking. Crews say if there are any other issues, they’ll be ready.

“Every building we have is occupied with our maintenance staff, to be proactive and not reactive,” Brazil said.

Just a couple of blocks away from the water main break, Lynn Sandy’s Bakery on Pittston Avenue is, surprisingly, open. They say having notice that they could lose water gave them time to prepare.

“As soon as we found out that we might have a problem with our water, we came down, and luckily with our business, we have a lot of buckets available to us,” Sandy said.

Sandy is in charge of making sure everything is sanitized. She kept water boiling while her staff kept baking.

One carwash in Scranton had water and was rather busy, but some others in the city aren’t so lucky.

“(I) went to the Wizard and it was closed and they had a sign up to come down here. So I come down here,” explained John Derenick of Taylor.

The Wizard Car Wash on Moosic Street can’t open until the water returns. Until then, it’s rerouting customers to its other car wash: Kwik N Ezy on Seventh Avenue.

Workers there say the water problems couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

“It’s a bad time, because finally the temperature’s going up better than it was, so it’s unfortunate they have to be shut down,” said Justin Krukowski at Kwik N Ezy Car Wash.

Many businesses couldn’t open their doors at all without running water, but are hoping to re-open in time for this Super Bowl weekend.